Lavrov Handed OSCE Docs on Europe's Pledges to Avoid Expanding NATO Eastward

© AFP 2023 / John MACDOUGALL Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addresses a press conference during the foreign ministers' meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Hamburg, northern Germany, on December 9, 2016.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov addresses a press conference during the foreign ministers' meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Hamburg, northern Germany, on December 9, 2016. - Sputnik International
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Friday he had handed member countries of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) declassified documents in which European leaders pledged NATO would not expand eastward.

HAMBURG (Sputnik) — During the last NATO summit in July, NATO resolved to strengthen its military presence in Eastern Europe on a rotational basis with four battalions in Poland and in the Baltic nations. During the 2014 summit, NATO established a 5,000-strong Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in response to the alleged Russian threat.

"NATO countries, during the last two summits in Wales and Warsaw, made decisions that radically change the situation with armaments in Europe. I am not even speaking about the forgotten… commitments given to the Soviet Union on NATO's non-expansion eastward," Lavrov told reporters after the OSCE Ministerial Council's meeting.

"I handed my counterparts the documents, which were declassified when Mikhail Gorbachev talked to Helmut Kohl, Eduard Shevardnadze talked to Hans-Dietrich Genscher and [US Secretary of State] Jim Baker was also a participant of these talks, it is clearly written there that all these figures from Germany, the United States — Francois Mitterrand also took part in those talks — they clearly said there would be no NATO eastward expansion, and moreover, NATO's military infrastructure will not approach our country's borders."

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